could be very long a matter of secrecy, and thus by degrees the welcome intelligence got to be general. yet no very great credence was given to the widespread rumour until Monday morning when notice appeared in most of the London papers that their Royal Highnesses would leave Frogmore House about the middle of the week for a fortnight's residence at St. Leonards on sea. It was then that the gratifying news was spread with the greatest alacrity, and the borough was at once jubilant thereat. The selection of our favoured locality as the fittest place on the south coast for her Royal Highness to recruit her health was felt to be an honour worthy of some acknowledgment, and the inhabitants of both towns began to consider how best they could show their appreciation of the event. The loyalty of the townspeople had been evinced on several occasions, and it was therefore no wonder that their first impulse was to make some public demonstration; but with the assurance that they would best consult the feelings of the royal couple
by abstaining from all outward manifestations of loyalty, it required but little reflection to convince the inhabitants of the propriety of adopting the latter course.
Intervening the order to prepare the hotel for their reception and the time of the royal party's arrival there were but a very few days, and it therefore behoved Mr. Starkey to at once set about making the necessary arrangements. For this purposes the services of Mr. Kenwood, cabinet maker and upholsterer of Mercatoria, and those of Mr. George Goldsmith, carpenter, of Shepherd street, were secured and a suite of rooms numbering upwards of twenty underwent the process of renovation for the royal party’s requirements. This work was fully described in Brett's St. Leonards Gazette at the time, which with some other preparations are not here repeated. The day first appointed for the royal pair and their suite to enter on their journey was Wednesday, but in cousequence of the wintry character of the weather, on the morning of that day, the departure was postponed. So sunny and beautiful aye, and even mild was the weather at St. Leonards that the inhabitants were slow to believe that the visit could have been deferred in consequence of severe weather. They consequently collected in and about the thoroughfares leading to the railway station to the number of some thousands, and only only thoroughly dispersed when the approach of night and the fatigue of standing induced them to return to their homes. On the following morning there existed much dubiousness as to whether the arrival would be witnessed on that day; and it was probably owing to that circumstance that the throng of persons was less dense on the arrival of the royal train than night otherwise have been the case. The knowledge, however, that eleven horses of the Prince of Wales stud and three of the Royal carriages (a Clarence, a Phaeton and a Wagonette) had arrived by the South Coast line on Wednesday afternoon, coupled with the announcement per telegram on Thursday morning that the royal party would leave Frogmore for St. Leonards on that day, had the effect of raising the hopes of the inhabitants who, at the appointed time of arrival turned out in large numbers to get a glimpse of those in whom the whole country evinced a deep interest, the special train left Windsor by the South-Western railway at half-two, and ar-
